1. A clear, compelling website
2. A clear and easy to find donation form
3. A permission-based email list
4. Great content (this includes great content for your emails and for your thank yous)

I hope you'll check it out!

Cheers!
Jocelyn

P.S. My company - Care2 - specializes in helping nonprofits acquire new online subscribers so that they can convert them into activists, members and donors. Looking to build your email list in 2010? Contact me at jocelynh (at) care2team (dot) com.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

We're calling a new rector for my church. This entails creating a detailed profile of our institution, assessing our ministries, analyzing our finances, and praying and reflecting on our next "calling." It also entails letting some ministries go.

It's like a big rummage sale. We're giving away some programs (on the cheap!) because they no longer work. At the same time, old dreams, long forgotten, have reappeared at the bottom of the rubbish pile.

The hardest part about holding a rummage sale is that it challenges us to change — to realize that we can't do it all and must make tough decisions about what to give away going forward. Here are my six suggestions for stepping up your marketing game in 2010. All of these require you first to let go, so you can make space for new miracles to take place. Good luck, and get ready to rummage.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Conduit, a for-profit that creates community toolbars (see example above for the Staley Foundation) to help businesses distribute their content across multiple sites, is inviting nonprofits of all stripes and sizes to apply for "Conduit Gives," a new program to help charitable organizations ignite their fundraising campaigns.

Conduit Gives enables nonprofits to create a custom toolbar to share their best news items, alerts, etc. with their donors, members, volunteers and advocates. Every time a user clicks on the button - Click to Give - Conduit will make a donation to the nonprofit. Users may click up to once a day, every day in 2010.

Up to 100 nonprofits will be selected for the chance to earn over $300,000 a month for a total of $3,5 million in 2010 via a conduit toolbar! Conduit will also help you brainstorm ways to market your conduit.

P.S. Toolbars or widgets, like Conduit, that make your web content portable and allow you to engage in "distributed marketing" have become very popular in recent years. By taking your content to your prospective and current audience members vs. waiting for them to come to you, you will garner more visibility (and donations) for your organization.